Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/239

Rh oldest gravels of Abbeville or Saint Acheul. It will be remembered that these latter deposits contained a similar fauna with flint implements, but no human bones. Hence the great importance of the Heidelberg discovery.

The accompanying tracings will at once disclose the chief osteological characters of the jaw (Fig. 59), viz., the enormous size of the ascending ramus, nearly double that of modern jaws ; the absence of a chin ; the canine teeth are not so highly developed as in some of the anthropoids, such as the gorilla ; indeed the teeth may be paralleled with those of Australian savages. As a whole, the Heidelberg jaw falls into line with

P.179-fig.59-Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.jpg

FIG. 59. Two views of the Heidelberg Mandible. (After Schoetensack.).

those of Naulette, Spy, Krapina, Chapelle-aux-Saints, and Moustier, but none of them equal it in size.

The Gibraltar Skull.

The numerous and tortuous caverns which penetrate the Rock of Gibraltar were long known to contain ossiferous remains of men and animals, but it was not till 1863 that they were proved by the researches of Captain Brome, aided by Professor Busk and Dr Falconer, to contain the bones of Pleistocene mammalia. Of these researches Professor Busk has given a full report to the Prehistoric Congress held at Norwich (1869), which shows that the great majority of the human remains and works of art collected from these caves belonged to Basques who frequented them in Neolithic times. Among the Pleistocene mammalia were ibex, cave-lion, spotted